Human trafficking is a modern-day form of slavery. Victims of human trafficking are
subjected to force, fraud, or coercion, for the purpose of sexual exploitation
or forced labor.
Victims are young children, teenagers, men and women.
After drug dealing, human trafficking is tied with the illegal arms industry as the
second largest criminal industry in the world today, and it is the fastest growing.
The Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 (TVPA) defines “Severe forms of Trafficking in
Persons” as:
• Sex Trafficking: the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a
person for the purpose of a commercial sex act
, in which a commercial sex act is
induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person forced to perform such an act
is under the age of 18 years; or
• Labor Trafficking: the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a
person for labor or services, through the use of force, fraud or coercion for the purpose of
subjection to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage or slavery.
In both forms, the victim is an unwilling participant due to force, fraud or coercion.
Trafficking Victims
Approximately 600,000 to 800,000 victims annually are trafficked across international borders
worldwide, according to the U.S. Department of State. These estimates include women, men
and children. Victims are generally trafficked into the U.S. from Asia, Central and South
America, and Eastern Europe. Many victims trafficked into the United States do not speak
and understand English and are therefore isolated and unable to communicate with service
providers, law enforcement and others who might be able to help them.
How Victims Are Trafficked
Many victims of trafficking are forced to work in prostitution or sex entertainment. However,
trafficking also takes place as labor exploitation, such as domestic servitude, sweatshop
factories, or migrant agricultural work. Traffickers use force, fraud and coercion to compel
women, men and children to engage in these activities.
Force involves the use of rape, beatings and confinement to control victims. Forceful
violence is used especially during the early stages of victimization, known as the ‘seasoning
process’, which is used to break victim’s resistance to make them easier to control.
Fraud often involves false offers of employment. For example, women and children will reply
to advertisements promising jobs as waitresses, maids and dancers in other countries and
are then forced into prostitution once they arrive at their destinations.
Coercion involves threats of serious harm to, or physical restraint of, victims of trafficking;
any scheme, plan or pattern intended to cause victims to believe that failure to perform an act
would result in restraint against them; or the abuse or threatened abuse of the legal process.
Victims of trafficking are often subjected to debt-bondage, usually in the context of paying off
transportation fees into the destination countries. Traffickers often threaten victims with injury
“Exploitation” – rather than trafficking - may be a more accurate description because the crime involves making
people perform labor or commercial sex against their will.
As defined by the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, the term ‘commercial sex act’ means any sex act, on
account of which anything of value is given to or received by any person.
or death, or the safety of the victim’s family back home. Traffickers commonly take away the
victims’ travel documents and isolate them to make escape more difficult.
Victims often do not realize that it is illegal for traffickers to dictate how they have to pay off
their debt. In many cases, the victims are trapped into a cycle of debt because they have to
pay for all living expenses in addition to the initial transportation expenses. Fines for not
meeting daily quotas of service or “bad” behavior are also used by some trafficking
operations to increase debt. Most trafficked victims rarely see the money they are supposedly
earning and may not even know the specific amount of their debt. Even if the victims sense
that debt-bondage is unjust, it is difficult for them to find help because of language, social,
and physical barriers that keep them from obtaining assistance.
Trafficking vs. Smuggling
Trafficking is not smuggling. There are several important differences between trafficking and
smuggling:
Human Trafficking
• Victims are coerced into trafficking. If victims do
consent, that consent is rendered meaningless by
the actions of the traffickers.
• Ongoing exploitation of victims to generate illicit
profits for the traffickers.
• Trafficking need not entail the physical movement
of a person (but must entail the exploitation of the
person for labor or commercial sex).
Migrant Smuggling
• Migrants consent to being
smuggled.
• Smuggling is always
transnational.
Help for Victims of Trafficking
Prior to the enactment of the TVPA in October 2000, no comprehensive Federal law existed
to protect victims of trafficking or to prosecute their traffickers. The law is comprehensive in
addressing the various ways of combating trafficking, including prevention, protection and
prosecution. It is intended to prevent human trafficking overseas, to increase prosecution of
human traffickers in the United States, and to protect victims and provide Federal and state
assistance to certain victims. Victims of human trafficking who are not U.S. citizens are
eligible for a special visa and can receive benefits and services through the TVPA to the
same extent as refugees. Victims of trafficking who are U.S. citizens may already be eligible
for many benefits due to their citizenship.
If you think you have come in contact with a victim of human trafficking, call the National
Human Trafficking Resource Center at 1.888.3737.888. This hotline will help you
determine if you have encountered victims of human trafficking, will identify local resources
available in your community to help victims, and will help you coordinate with local social
service organizations to help protect and serve victims so they can begin the process of
restoring their lives. For more information on human trafficking visit
www.acf.hhs.gov/trafficking.
Source: National Human Trafficking Resource Center
